The Challenge.

The Partnership.

The Commitment.

Taking Your Life Back

Edward L. Davis M.D.

An open letter from Edward L. Davis, MD

Welcome to www.ICaction.com. The reason for this web site is to distribute as widely as possible current approaches to the diagnosis, treatment, management, and life with Interstitial Cystitis. The thoughts and opinions expressed on these pages reflect our efforts to share the knowledge that we have gained from a practice that has more than 800 patients with documentation photos of the IC diagnosis.

It is my belief that IC is a complex of separate inflammatory processes that can begin to show the first symptoms as early in life as bed wetting, problems at school with being unable to control voiding, and the labeling that a child has a “small” or “nervous bladder.” Progressively these problems appear to increase with the life demands of maturity. Diet and hormonal changes can foster the emotional and physical environment that makes the progressive nature of IC become even more evident. What appear to be bladder infections or prostatitis enter the picture. The inflammatory process that compromises the bladder lining begins to show it self as urgency, frequency and pelvic pain. Taking antibiotics becomes a way of life and labels are extended to having chronic bladder and/or prostate infections, or “over active bladder.”

One hundred years ago a gynecologist identified and named a painful ulcerative condition of the bladder lining. Until the past decade the medical profession was satisfied that Hunner’s Ulcers were a condition relegated to the painful fate of elderly woman. No one to date has the answer as to how or why this ulcerative process begins; the theories range from histamine release to potassium leakage, but the progressive destruction of the bladder lining is very real.

The challenge of IC is to learn your individual methods to relieve the symptoms and reverse this process of bladder lining destruction. This web site is part of the partnership that we believe will help you reach that goal. Our commitment is to work with you to form the links you need to take control of your life. We welcome you and look forward to you sharing your questions and progress.